Bernie Masters is a geologist/zoologist who spent 8 years as a member of the Western Australian Parliament. Married to Carolina since 1976 and living in south west WA, Bernie is involved in many community groups. This blog offers insights into politics, the environment and other issues that annoy or interest him. For something completely different, visit www.fiatechnology.com.au for information about vegetated floating islands - the natural way to improve water quality.

Wednesday, May 06, 2015

Nature Produced the World's First GM Food 8,000 Years Ago - Sweet Potatoes

Are You Opposed to Genetically
Modified Foods Because They're Unnatural? Sweet Potatoes Were Genetically Modified
8,000 Years Ago by Nature

The first genetically
modified crop wasn't made by a megacorporation or a college scientist trying to
design a more durable tomato. Nope. Nature did it - at least 8,000 years ago.
Well, actually bacteria in the soil were the engineers. And the microbe's
handiwork is present in sweet potatoes all around the world today.

Scientists at the
International Potato Center in Lima, Peru, have found genes from bacteria in
291 sweet potato varieties, including ones grown in the U.S., Indonesia, China,
parts of South America and Africa. The findings suggest bacteria inserted the
genes into the crop's wild ancestor long before humans started cooking up sweet
potato fries.

"People have been
eating a GMO for thousands of years without knowing it," says virologist
Jan Kreuze, who led the study. He and his colleagues reported their findings
last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Kreuze
thinks the extra DNA helped with the domestication of the sugary vegetable in
Central or South America.

Sweet potatoes aren't
tubers, like potatoes. They're roots - swollen, puffed-up parts of the root.
"We think the bacteria genes help the plant produce two hormones that
change the root and make it something edible," says Kreuze. "We need
to prove that, but right now, we can't find any sweet potatoes without these
genes."

When our ancestors started
to farm sweet potatoes, Krezue says, they very likely noticed the puffed up
root and selected plants that carried the foreign genes. The genes stuck around
as the sweet potato spread across the globe - first to Polynesia and Southeast
Asia, then to Europe and Africa.Today, the sweet potato is
the world's seventh most important crop in terms of pounds of food produced,
the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says.

"In the U.S., it seems
to be important only at Thanksgiving," Kreuze jokes. "But in parts of
Africa, it's a staple crop. It's very robust. When every other crop fails,
sweet potatoes still grow."

In China, sweet potatoes are
used to feed livestock. And in many other places, people saute the plant's
leaves to make a yummy dish called sweet potato greens.All these farmers - whether
they're tending to backyard plots in Rwanda or megafarms in China - are raising
a natural GMO.

"I don't think that's
all that surprising," says Greg Jaffe, the GMO expert at the Center for
Science in the Public Interest in Washington. "Anyone who's familiar with
genetic engineering wouldn't be surprised that the [bacteria] Agrobacterium
inserted some DNA into some crops."

Making GM plants is
surprisingly easy. Scientists take a few plant cells and mix them with a
special bacterium called Agrobacterium. The microbe acts a bit like a virus: It
injects a little chunk of DNA into the plant cells - which eventually finds its
way to the plant's genome. Biologists then coax the
engineered cells to replicate and grow into an entire plant with roots and
shoots. Every cell in that plant then contains the bacteria's genes. Voila! You
have a GM plant. (Unlike animals, plants don't have to grow from an embryo.
Many species can sprout up out from a variety of cell types.)

Agrobacterium is ubiquitous
in soils all around the world - and infects more than 140 plants species. So it
doesn't take much imagination to see how the bacteria's DNA could eventually
find its way into our food. "I suspect if you look in more crops, you'd
find other examples," Jaffe says.

So why does an
8,000-year-old GM sweet potato matter? The example might be helpful for
regulators and scientists looking at the safety of GM crops, Jaffe says.
"In many African countries, some regulators and scientists are skeptical
and have some concerns about whether these crops are safe," Jaffe says.
"This study will probably give them some comfort. It puts this technology
into context."

But the study won't assuage
many consumers' worries about GMOs, Jaffe says. "A lot of people's
concerns aren't just about whether what the scientists have done is natural or
whether the crops are safe to eat." Many people worry about
whether GMOs increase the use of pesticides and herbicides. Or that some
companies use the technology to make seeds intellectual property. "In
these instance, you have to look at the GMO on a case-by-case basis,"
Jaffe says.

In the case of sweet
potatoes, at least, the world seems clear on all those fronts.

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